Bill Spillard, Still With The "G"?

My Grandfather Bill Spillard was a very interesting guy. He ran away from his home in Elgin, Illinois to become a singer in vaudeville, was a song plugger on Tin Pan Alley, and then became a Federal Narcotics Agent. During World War II he worked for the OSS, doing background checks on potential recruits. After that he became an arson investigator, and I think was an assistant fire marshal in Chicago before he retired.  On the left is the sheet music for a song he wrote called Chicago: Your Town and Mine (he just loved his hometown of Chicago), and in the bottom right-hand corner I superimposed a photograph of him and my Grandmother Louise Spillard (who I featured on a blog post a few weeks ago), taken on their 50th wedding anniversary back in 1958.

My Grandfather Spillard also wrote a book, in collaboration with a writer named Pense James - published back in the 1940s - called Needle in a Haystack, about his adventures as a Federal Narcotics Agent.  The photograph on the right shows James on the left and my grandfather on the right, posing for a publicity shot.  The most memorable story in the book was when my grandfather was working undercover investigating a mob boss in Kansas City, and while he was at a restaurant meeting with this crime figure and his associates, an acquaintance walked up to my grandfather and said "Bill Spillard, still with the "G"?  Some goons took him away, and he was afraid they were going to kill him, but they just wound up putting him on a train back to Chicago.  Years later, when that mob boss was sentenced on different charges, my grandfather talked to him and told him he thought he was going to die that night.  The mob boss said that he sent those goons to protect him, and make sure he left town safely, because if anything happened to a federal agent, he would be in big trouble.  He said that night my grandfather was as safe as a baby in it's mother's arms.  I am ashamed to say I have never read Needle in a Haystack.  Now that I have lots of time on my hands during this pandemic, I think I will definitely read it now.